It’s Beat Generation time. First Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg; now Jack Kerouac’s 1962 novel “Big Sur” opens Friday with Kate Bosworth, Balthazar Getty, Josh Lucas, Jean-Marc Barr. Josh Lucas: “I play Neal Cassady, Kerouac’s everything — lover, nemesis, raison d’être, hard-living, fast-driving, pill-popping best friend, his muse. I read the script. Then the novel. Then obsessively reread the script. The profound, terrifyingly honest movie, fraught with alcohol and pain, makes him less hazy. Accessible. His end of the road touched me deeply.
“Knowing conflicts of a human heart, we can imagine falling prey to desire. He gives the woman he loves to Kerouac as a gift. As an actor, I had to pretend that in real life Kate Bosworth was mine and I had to give her away.”
Stunning Kate Bosworth would not have to sleep with a director to get the part, but her husband, Michael Polish, directed the film. She said: “Kerouac’s time was a shift in history. Conservatives exploring sexuality.”
Speaking of physique and sexuality, she, narrow as a pencil, insisted: “I eat. I’m a big eater. Like hamburgers. I’m in the Fatburger business. I frequent hamburger joints. Love them with relish, mayonnaise, ketchup and onions.”
Balthazar Getty: “I play Beat Generation grandfather Michael McClure, who’s still alive. I knew this bohemian life. I write, paint, spent time in a Zen center. My progressive parents knew poets and writers and lived in Rome. My mother was a revolutionary hippie. Artists will love this movie. The first half-hour is voice-over. It’s not today’s usual crashing cars crap.”
The name Balthazar? “My parents knew a man who had this name. They loved it.
So people call me Balty . . . or Balt . . . or . . . better still, Mr. Getty.”
Jean Marc-Barr: “I hang in London or Paris. I trained there. My career started with Luc Besson and Lars von Trier. I didn’t even know Kerouac’s ‘On the Road.’ But being from a strict Catholic background, just imagine how I since learned about living a very romantic life. And proved it. And experimented with it. In this, I play a nymphomaniac.”
Designs on real estate
I toured Tommy Hilfiger’s Plaza Hotel duplex, which broker Dolly Lenz is selling for an amount of rubles only Putin has. After headaches, flooding, cave-ins, damage and three years constructing, why? He says: “I have houses everywhere. I love decorating. Love the challenge. The market’s going high for real estate. I love selling big and making money. I’m now building in Florida.”
Meanwhile, his wife, Dee, was selling her custom handbags in the dining room.
What you should know
You should know that for Hanukkah, patisserie Financier is serving vanilla-flavored blue and white macaroons . . . You should know that for Halloween, the Empire State Building is presenting an online LED light show with spooky music . . . You should also know Sen. Fred Thompson, playing a judge in B’way’s “A Time To Kill,” said of today’s killings and shootings: “It’s become commonplace.”
No accident
CIA (Cindy Irene Adams, my name) intelligence: Huma and Anna — a k a Weiner and Wintour — lunching at a public place? They wanted to be seen or they’d snack privately . . . Chelsea toiling away for Sandy victims? She wanted to be seen or not every TV, fotog and reporter would’ve reported it.
Naomi Watts, as Princess Di in Friday’s biopic, mightn’t include my 1989 inquiry about BAM’s conveniences available for Diana’s convenience. They said facilities had been simonized just for her pit stop. “One ladies’ room’s been cordoned off just for her. A private powder room’s set aside in case the princess cares to . . . er . . . refresh.” She didn’t “refresh,” but none of us were allowed to try it out.
Thanked for the borough’s suddenly overwhelming security, she said: “Well, at least I did something good for the city.”
As she left, a bearded local behind the ropes croaked: “Hey, that Highness is really a good-lookin’ broad.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.